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The essence of business success lies in making sure you're playing the right game. How do you know if it's the right game? What can you do if it's the wrong game? To help managers answer those questions, the authors have developed a framework that draws on the insights of game theory. The primary insight of game theory is the importance of focusing on others. In other words, companies should consider both cooperative and competitive ways to change the game. Who are the participants in the game of business? The authors introduce a schematic map that represents all the players and all the interdependencies among them.

learning objective:

To discover how companies can create and capture more value by implementing strategies that blend principles from rule-based and freewheeling games.

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The NutraSweet Co. has very successfully marketed aspartame, a low-calorie, high-intensity sweetener, around the world. NutraSweet's position was protected by patents until 1987 in Europe, Canada, and Japan, and until the end of 1992 in the United States. The case series describes the competition that ensued between NutraSweet and the Holland Sweetener Co. (HSC) following HSC's entry into the aspartame market in 1987. Describes the subsequent move and countermove in both the marketplace and the courts. Also, discusses the business "game" that takes place at both the tactical and value levels. Ends with the final countdown to the expiration of NutraSweet's U.S. patent.

learning objective:

To examine a game in business that takes place at two levels: the surface game of tactics and the underlying game of value. At the tactical level, there are various points at which NutraSweet or HSC made a move with a view to shaping the perceptions of the other player. Turning to the underlying game of value, there are the actions that NutraSweet took during the period of patent protection. These actions served to maintain NutraSweet's added value in the post-patent game, and to deny added value to challengers.

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Includes these articles: "What the Chief Learning Officer Actually Knows," "Business Strategy: Getting Beyond Competition, An Interview with Adam Brandenburger," "All You Need to Know About Making Money on the Internet--at Least As of This Month," and "Web Sites for Managers: Focus on Business in Asia." Also includes these Quick Scans: "Why Organizations Don't Learn," "The Fastest Growing Occupation," and "How Customization Really Works."

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Adam Brandenburger, a Harvard Business School professor and author of the book Co-opetition, identifies what he perceives as the next wave of thinking about business strategy. Instead of concentrating on competition, players must learn a more complicated game. Companies are exploring new ways to work with a variety of players, customers and suppliers, and how to create partnerships and alliances even between erstwhile competitors. Brandenburger emphasizes the importance of working with complementors, other enterprises whose products and services make your own more attractive in the eyes of your customers. Effectiveness will be a product of recognizing and using interdependence, and success will require us to reshape some of the economic constructs that come from an earlier era.

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Although today Intel is a titan, the company's history has been a roller-coaster ride. And no one is more qualified to reflect on Intel's close calls and spectacular successes than its CEO, Andrew Grove. Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff say that Grove's book, Only the Paranoid Survive, offers advice to managers in every business on how to bridge the narrow line between catastrophe and opportunity, and seize the opportunities. Grove's leadership of Intel has led him to conclude that some fear is healthy, especially in organizations with a track record of success. His prescription for ending complacency is a dose of paranoia--a suspicion that the world is changing against you. How can managers catch this mental condition? By stepping outside their organization and adopting the perspective of someone without a vested interest in the status quo.

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Minnetonka Corp. which was founded in 1964, began as a niche player in the gift soap and novelty toiletries markets. In 1980, it entered--and managed to capture a piece of--the mass bar-soap market with pump-dispensed Softsoap liquid soap. In 1984, the company took on the toothpaste market with plaque-fighting, pump-dispensed Check-Up. This time, success was more fleeting. Minnetonka launched the hugely successful Obsession fragrance in 1985, following up with Eternity in 1988. Minnetonka's various businesses were sold over the period 1987 to 1989. Analysis suggests that the key is the use of scope--starting a new game linked to an existing game in which rival players are already established. Analysis indicates that rivals may then deliberately choose to delay imitating the innovator if they view the innovation as: 1) sufficiently unlikely to succeed in the marketplace, and 2) sufficiently close a substitute to their existing products. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

learning objective:

Explores how a company can create a window of opportunity in which to capture value from a readily imitated innovation.

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Companies sometimes issue rebate coupons entitling the holder to a certain amount off the price of their products. This case explores the effects of rebate coupons on the game between two companies that operate in a market where there is very little underlying customer loyalty. Analysis indicates that all sellers gain, even if only one seller issues rebates. When all sellers issue rebates, all sellers gain more. The effect is seen to depend on the presence of an underlying rule of the marketplace ("one-price-to-all").

learning objective:

To examine how, by issuing rebate coupons, sellers can make money even when each has zero added value.

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The 1980s were the "Nintendo" decade in video-games, while the early 1990s saw Sega rise to prominence on the basis of next-generation, 16-bit technology. By early 1994, Nintendo and Sega split the worldwide installed base of 16-bit home video-game systems about equally. Still, while 16-bit systems offered superior graphics, sound, and game play over the earlier 8-bit systems, many observers considered them a transitional technology, likely to be superseded in the next two to five years. The case focuses on the efforts of 3DO, a high-profile U.S. start-up, to promote a new 32-bit platform. Also describes the new technologies being developed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Philips, and Atari. By expanding the scope of the game, 3DO engineered a window of opportunity with respect to the established players, Nintendo and Sega. Focuses on how 3DO chose to exploit that opportunity. Illustrates, in particular, the strategy of bringing new players into a game. Planning to make money from licensing the software technology, 3DO gave away the hardware technology for free.

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Home video-game systems were pioneered by the U.S. company Atari in the mid-1970s. After going through boom and bust in the early 1980s, the industry was resurrected in the mid-1980s by the Japanese company Nintendo. With its 8-bit video-game system, Nintendo established a dominant position in a greatly expanded home video-game market. The case focuses on the post-1987 period, when new 16-bit home video-game technology began to come on the market. First to introduce a next-generation system was the major Japanese electronics company NEC. Second out with a 16-bit system was Sega, the leader in the Japanese arcade-game business and an unsuccessful player in the 8-bit home video-game market. Nintendo itself moved more slowly in introducing a 16-bit system. The case ends with the battle between Sega and Nintendo to gain the edge in 16-bit sales.

learning objective:

Illustrates how a challenger can succeed by changing the scope of the game.

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The home video-game industry began in 1972 with the founding of Atari. After riding a dramatic boom and bust in the early 1980s, most players left the business. Nintendo of Japan then rebuilt the industry--establishing a commanding worldwide position by the end of the decade. By 1990, Nintendo game systems could be found in one out of every three households--in both Japan and the United States. The company's stock market value exceeded that of Sony or Nissan. The case describes the steps Nintendo took to achieve this success. Also covers the U.S. antitrust investigation of Nintendo.

learning objective:

Illustrates the importance of added value as opposed to value. TVs and cars surely create more value than do video games. Analysis of the case involves writing down the Value Net for Nintendo--i.e., identifying its customers, suppliers, substitutors, and complementors. The discussion centers on understanding how Nintendo's actions served to limit the added values of all of these other players.

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